308 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
theu be able to produce cheap and fine woolen fabrics at prices that will enable us to 
compete with those of any other country. 
Of the wool-growing of Utah, Hon. W. H. Hooper writes : 
The climate, grasses, and topography of Utah render it one of the best sheep-pro- 
ducing localities in the whole range of the States and Territories; and in this respect 
what I say for Utah will almost equally apply to the entire Rocky Mountain country. 
Sheep when well wintered and cared for prove to be healthy and prolific, afferding the 
finest mutton I have ever eaten, and their fleeces are superior in quantity and quality. 
The people of our Territory have from necessity given to the subject of sheep hus- 
bandry a fwil and careful test. Their destitute condition on arriving at Salt Lake 
compelled them to give early and thorough attention to home productions, as their 
fine flocks of sheep and their numerous woolen and cotton factories, which followed 
the settlement of that region, will attest. I think there are now running five woolen 
factories which are far behind in working up the wool product. Other factories are 
now being built. One of them, designed to run 3,000 spindles, is intended for the manu- 
facture of a finer class of gcods than any yet produced in the Territory. Iam satisfied 
that we shall soon be able not only to elothe our present population with these home 
products, making the investments at the same time self-sustaining and profitable, but 
be able to provide for the large influx that is yearly adding to our numbers. We are 
pleased to know that with these additions are many skilled workmen in woolens, as 
well as in other branches of mechanism. One very advantageous feature of the Rocky 
Mountain range in sheep-growing is the adaptability of our many valleys to the rais- 
ing of roots, which afford good food and enable sheep-owners in the higher and more 
northern portions to feed well, and thus render more certain a large number of lambs 
and also large fleeces. 
‘Hon. Roscoe Conkling, of New York, writes: 
On all occasions of traversing the plains—and I have crossed them several times— 
my attention has been attracted to the adaptation of the country to flocks. Indeed, 
the most broken, abrupt, and waste places seemed to me available for sheep-grazing. 
Hon. William Lawrence, of Ohio, says: ‘ 
I have been and am yet somewhat interested in raising sheep and producing wool in 
Ohio, and have given some attention to the subject. On the eighth cf April last I 
expressed my opinion of the future of sheep husbandry in this country, in a speech 
made in Congress, and which opinion I yet believe to be correct. I then predicted 
that the interior of this continent would, in a few years, produce nearly all the wool 
that would be required in the United States for our home supply; and, in faet, I do 
not entertain any doubt that in twenty years enough wool can be raised to supply not 
only the home demand, but enough for all the export trade that this country can 
command. In August, 1868, I passed over the railroad from Omaha to San Francisco. 
I stopped at Laramie, in Wyoming Territory. ‘There I saw a herd of 4,000 cattle and 
some 3,000 sheep, grazing in Laramie Valley, in healthy condition and good order. 
The Laramie Valley is about one hundred miles long and thirty wide, as I there learned, 
covered mainly with short but very nutritious grasses, well adapted to raising cattle 
and sheep. The climate, asI learned, was generally cool, with a healthy, bracing atmo- 
sphere, with nothing to produce disease either in men or in stock. I mention this 
valley because J examined it more carefully than any other; but from what I saw 
and learned, I am satisfied that a large part of the great central interior of this con- 
tinent is of the same description of land. I cannot doubt that this is in a few years 
to become the principal sheep-producing region of this country. Sheep can be raised 
without expense, save for herding, and in some places the cost of cutting enough grass 
along the streams for hay to teed a short time in winter; while in much of this vast 
region, as I learn, sheep can be kept the year round in good order without hay or 
erain, simply by grazing. I cannot doubt’ that in a few years wool will be produced 
so cheaply and in such quantities that it will not be imported from abroad. 
When onr honie supply of wool shall be thus increased and rendered as cheap as wool 
can be imported, or cheaper, I cannot see why this may not become the greatest man- 
ufacturing country in the world. With the cheapest wool in the world, and a vast 
supply of agricultural products, woolen manufactures must spring up in great abund- 
ance, and the United States will become exporters, instead of importers, of woolen 
goods. 
Hon. J. Francis Chaves, of New Mexico, writes: 
Without having the data before me, and judging only from what I know of the Ter- 
ritory of New Mexico and the large sheep-owners in it, I am safisfied that I do not 
overestimate the numbers in stating them at 1,500,000 head of ewes. The climate is 
temperate and salubrious, no disease being known. Sheep are herded and grazed 
from one portion of the Territory to another during the same year, thus adopting 
